


Welcome Home

by trascendenza



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Community: innumerablehues, F/F, POV Female Character, layers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-10
Updated: 2007-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The games play both ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for innumerablehues, for sionnain's prompt: subterfuge ([mirror](http://community.livejournal.com/innumerablehues/5896.html)).

A cursory psychic glance, fingers brushing over a cheek, and she knows: the bond is strong and steady. He smiles at her sleepily.

_Scott._

Of course Scott—always Scott.

She turns over in the bed and wonders who she expected—or wanted—to see.

*

'Hearing voices' doesn't even begin to cover what most of her life has been like. But they've been coming more often, lately, and lines that once held her steady are beginning to blur.

So when she thinks she sees a pair of yellow eyes blinking at her in the dark, and hears a voice purr _Hello, Phoenix_, she doesn't sound the alarm, but neither does she pet the cat, beautiful though it is.

It fades off the premises, after awhile, but her memory of it does not.

*

"Call me Phoenix," she tells him without explanation, digging her nails into the small of his back and wrapping her legs tighter, so tight he can't escape.

Scott gasps, shuddering in her arms, and he chokes out a ragged _Phoenix_ before collapsing against her. But in his mind, she can hear echoes: _Jean, Jean, Jean_.

The sheets burst into flames, and she laughs when his fear burns away the last traces of what was her name.

*

Scott, always Scott. The first and the last, the alpha and omega.

It's right that he should end here, inside her.

_Such beautiful eyes_, she says, and scatters him into dust.

*

_Lost lost lost pain pain pain lost lost lost pain lost need lost pain need need pain lost LOST PAIN NEED_—

"STOP!" She screams, and the clouds explode away from her until she hovers alone, in the night sky.

_Refuge. Need refuge._

And she remembers a pair of eyes that never looked at her in fear.

*

Phoenix doesn't go to her in flames and fury—Mystique, after all, has earned her namesake. Even with the power to lay the world bare before her fingertips, Phoenix finds Mystique's consciousness as slippery as her form, with only a singular constant amidst the choppy surf: a man that a girl named Jean once loved as a father.

*

"I knew you would come for me." Mystique smiles, the tense and hunched posture of a lion ensnared melting out of her current nondescript body, pleasure rippling across her skin in vivid colors, but she doesn't yet change.

The handcuffs clatter to the floor, shattered to pieces.

"My dear," Phoenix whispers, running her fingers along Mystique's cheek; the illusion she weaves, cloying and thick, wraps around her, and she hears a man's voice speak the next words. "Let me see you."

Mystique throws her head back, and the change is beautiful, aching, slow—cell by cell, liquid by liquid inch, she resumes herself, wild and pure and free.

Outside, the road burns as the Phoenix revels in her.

_Glory_, Phoenix sings, and Mystique is made her own, ferocious surrender all the sweeter for that it is freely given.

*

"I will take you to him," Mystique says. They fly through the air on the flattened metal disc that used to be her prison.

"Him?" Phoenix-Erik's voice dissolves back into just Phoenix, and the illusion wavers. The disc drops; she instinctively keeps Mystique suspended beside her.

"Erik. You make a very good one, but…" Mystique wraps her arms around Phoenix's shoulders and the touch calms Phoenix's roiling equilibrium. "I've been waiting for you."

Tongues of fire lick down Phoenix's cheeks. "I was lost."

"I know. But I've found you. We've found you." Mystique kisses her, softly, and speaks in a familiar mind-voice.

_Hello, Phoenix. Welcome to the Brotherhood._


End file.
